We made some calls, arranged to have someone watch Maxfield and Wyatt and we headed to the hospital. We were sitting in the triage room by 8:30 am waiting for someone to determine if Lauren was in Labor. She said she was having minor contractions but nothing that would make her think she was giving birth. The other two births (here and here) she went through were so completely different she was not sure. It looked like this delivery was going to be like the first time she gave birth. They confirmed that Lauren’s water had indeed broken.

While in the triage room Lauren was hooked up to several different monitors, pulse rate, heart rate, fetal heart rate, contraction-contraption and I think a few others. The nurse started to ask Lauren medical questions as I watched each digital display screen trying to determine what each one meant. As the nurse documented the charts I decided to ask Lauren some of my own questions.

“Do you keep any secrets from me?” I asked still studying the heart and pulse rate monitors.

“What?” she asked back in a somewhat annoyed tone.

“Do you have a separate bank account?”

“Bill, what are you talking about?”

“I just figured that since you were hooked up to these monitors that I would be able to tell if you are lying to me. It is kind of like a lie detector.”

The nurse gave me a weird look. Lauren said something about me being a dork and asked if I could tell whether she was telling the truth about that statement.

They moved us into a birthing suite by 9:30 and we waited for the doctors to visit. I made sure Lauren was comfortable and we waited and waited but nothing was happening. Lauren’s OB-Gyn Kenobi, decided to give her Pitosin, a labor inducer, at around 12:30 to move things along.

During the wait we discussed the baby's name. We had not decided on a middle name and I suggested that since it was January 6th, Little Christmas, we should name him Balthasar or Melchior after the Three Wise Men. Lauren quickly shot those names down.

We waited and waited. At one point in the middle of the afternoon we could hear the woman in the room next to us deliver her kid. I am not kidding when I say this; I have never heard a woman scream and holler and carry on as much as that woman did. It was like a scene from a movie. A scary movie. Lauren and I could not help but chuckle, cringe and listen in amazement, from the other side of the wall.

I think the woman’s screaming made Lauren’s body kick into gear. Her contractions grew more intense and closer together. Sometime around 7:37PM the OB-Gyn Kenobi told Lauren to start pushing. He then asked me if I wanted to watch the miracle of birth. I declined. He gave me a look. I told him I did not need to know how a car worked just as long as it did, that is what a mechanic is for. I told him he was the mechanic.

Three and half minutes later, at 7:41 PM, Jackson was born. My third boy, I now had three wise men.

Happy birthday to your dear Jackson! It seems crazy that it's already been a year!

(Also, I didn't look either. seriously. If it looks like what it feels like, then sometimes there should be some mysteries in life! What I could see was a room full of doctors and students, so trust me, tickets were sold out when I finally got around to trying to buy one for that performance!)

p.s. - Bogart, water breaking makes a sound, but don't trust medical staff to know it. When mine did, the nurse looked at my husband, and both of them asked at the same time, "What was that?!" I had to lift the sheet to clue them in.

How fitting that my word verification is "ratedrad"! I've been reading your blog for awhile, and am featuring it on my blog today. My readership is nowhere near yours, but if I can get a couple people to visit you and get a few laughs, I'll be happy!

Happy Birthday.God, aren't birth stories the best?!Love this post.My blog is down, too many reasons to explain why, but suffice it to say, your writing gave me a smile and laugh that was much much needed.Thanks.Mom of 1 2 and Special K

p.s. Did you really do the lie test with your wife while she was in labor? I did say that I love her when you told the story about her putting up the shelves ON HER OWN. Well, now I have great respect for her self-restraint. Or just plain awesome sense of humor.